Bad Medicine
by Isabelle Ashe
Summary: Dr. Fraiser accidentally prescribes the wrong medicine. DanJan; hurtcomfort


Categories:Daniel/Janet, hurt/comfort, little bit of angst

Season/Spoilers: oh, late season 4-ish, I guess; no real spoilers, except kind of minor for Season 8's "Lockdown" (don't worry, it's still set in season 4—everyone's alive!)

Summary: Dr. Fraiser accidentally prescribes the wrong medicine.

Author's Notes: My answer to Meg's August fic challenge (challenge details below). I also thought I would take this opportunity to reinforce the theory that "Lockdown"'s Dr. Brightman has actually been around for a while and was even friends with Janet—the theory was, I think, originally ses's, and I think it makes a whole lot of sense and allows me to like Brightman better. Oh, and I gave Dr. Brightman a first name—we never learned what it really is, did we? Also, I did just a teeny bit of medical-type research on this one, and I'm probably way off-base, so if there are any medical professionals among you, please don't shoot me! But I would love to be respectfully corrected—one learns new things every day!

The Challenge:

So, the challenge contest for August is called the Daniel/Janet  
Angst/Drama Challenge. Here are the criteria -

1 Must fall under the category of angst/drama, at least to some  
degree.

2 At some point in the fic, Janet is responsible for hurting Daniel  
in some way. Whether she messes up during an examination, zats him,  
shoots him, spills scalding hot coffee on him, or whatever is up to  
you, but it has to be something serious and not just stepping on his  
toes. ;)

3 Let's have some angst and guilt-ridden Janet, people:)

4 No character death - I don't want her to hurt him THAT badly. ;)

* * *

Janet drew the curtain around an empty infirmary bed and stretched out on it. She hadn't slept in more than 48 hours, and she felt the deprivation in every fiber of her body. The stargate had inexplicably ceased to function normally, and since its malfunction coincided with SG-9's return from a hostile planet, General Hammond had put the base on lockdown until he could be certain that there was no alien threat. Unfortunately, Major Carter was off-world visiting her father, and without her help, the gate technicians were having difficulty fixing the problem. Janet just hoped they figured it out soon because she was not sure how long she could continue to manage as the lone physician on base.

Just as she began to doze, Janet was startled by her curtain being drawn aside hesitantly. "Dr. Fraiser?" asked Lt. Graham.

"Hm, yes?" responded the sleepy doctor as she rolled over and sat up to face her nurse.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but Dr. Jackson is here complaining of sore throat and fever. When I told him you were sleeping, he didn't want to bother you, but his temperature is almost 103, so I thought you would want to look at him."

Janet nodded and frowned. She had seen Daniel less than seven hours ago when they had lunch together, and she hadn't thought him sick then. Tired, certainly, but he had assured her he felt fine. They were to have had dinner as well, but she had gotten caught up when Siler accidentally electrocuted himself, and she was forced to cancel.

SG-1 was on downtime, and the base lockdown had separated them: Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c had been stuck off-base at the Colonel's house, Sam with the Tok'ra, and Daniel at the mountain. Janet had been glad that the Colonel and Teal'c had been able to watch Cassie (though she tried not to imagine the amounts of junk food her daughter was eating in the care of her "uncles"). And she had to admit, if she had to be stuck on base, at least Daniel was stuck here with her. They had shared most meals over the past two days, and the company had been delightful; Janet was almost convinced that at least some of her feelings for the handsome archeologist were reciprocated.

Her train of thought was interrupted as she entered a room to see said archeologist sitting on a bed looking miserable.

"Sorry to wake you," he rasped as she entered.

"What am I going to do with you, Daniel! So at lunch when you told me you felt fine, were you lying, or did this come on quickly?" she asked as she stuck the thermometer in his ear.

"Uh," he began sheepishly, "I guess I kind of felt bad then. But I didn't want you to worry."

Janet fixed him with a severe look and proceeded to examine his ears, nose, and throat. "Well," she said after a few minutes, "if I had to hazard a guess, it looks like you have strep throat. I'm going to run a throat culture to make sure." She swabbed his throat with cotton and deposited it in a sterile container. "Lie back and rest," she said softly, placing a hand on his shoulder and helping him to lie down. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

Ten minutes later, Janet returned with a syringe and a bottle of medicine.

"Well?" Daniel asked.

"Well, I'm certainly sorry you're feeling so bad, Daniel, but if you have to be sick, at least it's plain, old strep throat and not some alien disease that I don't know how to treat. I'm going to give you your first dose of antibiotics as an injection, and then these are the pills that you should take once a day for the next five days. You won't be contagious after twenty-four hours, but until then, you should try to stay away from people if you can." She dispensed the drug into his arm as she finished talking and carefully removed the needle.

"I think the only person I've really been around is you," Daniel announced after a moment's consideration. "How do you feel?"

Janet paused to do a brief mental survey. "To be honest, my head is a little fuzzy and I don't feel the best, but I think that's more from lack of sleep than from a latent bacterial infection."

"Well, I should let you get back to sleep, then," answered Daniel with a faint smile. "Do I have to stay here?"

She studied him for a moment while weighing the options. Part of her wanted him to stay so that she could justify sitting with him, but she knew it was unnecessary. "If you will promise to go back to your quarters and rest, I'll let you go. But no work, and absolutely no coffee!"

"Yes, ma'am!" he answered with a half-hearted attempt at a playful salute. "Thank you, Janet."

Janet had almost made it back to the bed she had confiscated when she heard Lt. Graham's voice: "Dr. Jackson? Are you okay? Whoa! Ruiz, help me get him on the bed, and then go get Dr. Fraiser, now!"

Janet raced back into the other room before Airman Ruiz could get to her. Daniel was collapsed on the bed, seizing, and having difficulty breathing. "He's in anaphylactic shock," she quickly recognized. "He's not breathing. We need to intubate him now to keep the airway open. And get me epinephrine." Expertly, she maneuvered the tube through Daniel's rapidly constricting trachea as Graham administered the epinephrine. Soon, Daniel's seizures calmed, and the swelling in his airway went down, allowing Janet to remove the tube.

"What did he react to?" asked Graham as she picked up Daniel's chart.

"It has to be the azithromycin," Janet answered. "I just diagnosed him with strep throat and gave him 500 mg."

"Azithromycin?" replied Graham with confusion. "You wrote here that you gave him amoxicillin."

"No," Janet said slowly, furrowing her brow. "Daniel's allergic to—oh, shit! Oh my god! I gave him amoxicillin!" She felt panic overwhelm her in a way it hadn't since she was a resident. She ran through Daniel's vitals on the monitor, then tried to take his pulse manually. Somehow, physically feeling her patients' pulses—especially Daniel's—helped to ground her. The steady beep of the EKG told her that his heart was beating, but the pulse eluded her frantic fingers. "Damn it!" she muttered. "I know he's allergic to penicillin. What the hell was I thinking? Oh god, Daniel, I'm so sorry." She cursed the frustrated tears that she felt pricking at her eyes.

"Dr. Fraiser," Lt. Graham said softly as she laid a hand on her CO's shoulder, "he's okay. He's fine now. It was an honest mistake, and you're very tired. He's okay."

Janet drew a shaky breath to calm herself, but she couldn't bring herself to let go of Daniel's wrist. She tried to allow Graham's words to sink in. She didn't want to break down in front of a junior officer, even if it was her best nurse. Suddenly, she felt Daniel's pulse under her finger, strong and even, and she sighed in relief.

A knock on the door forced Janet to compose herself fully. She turned around to see an airman she recognized as one of the general's aides.

"Dr. Fraiser, General Hammond sent me to tell you that they've fixed the gate problem and determined that it was just a simple computer glitch. The lockdown has ended, and Dr. Brightman and a new shift of nurses are up at the checkpoint, preparing to come down to relieve you."

Janet nodded briskly. "Thank you, airman."

The young man left, and Janet turned again to her nurse. Lt. Graham spoke first. "Doctor, why don't you sit with Dr. Jackson for a while, and I'll brief Dr. Brightman and the next shift."

Janet knew that Graham was offering to cover for her, and although her professional persona disagreed, she could do no more than nod mutely and sink into the chair next to Daniel's bed. Her head was pounding, and the aftermath of her adrenaline rush had left her even more tired than before. She groaned as she recognized a pronounced soreness in her throat as she swallowed, and a quick check of the skin of her face and neck told her that she most likely had a fever.

Daniel was sleeping peacefully, and she took his hand gently. "I'm so sorry, Daniel," she whispered as she lowered her head to rest on the side of his bed and began to cry softly.

* * *

Janet wasn't sure how long she had been asleep when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Janet?" asked a soft, questioning voice above her. As she sat up, her head and neck protested painfully. She blinked twice as Dr. Brightman came into focus.

"Rebecca?" Janet winced at the soreness of her throat. "What—how long?" She trailed off, looked confused, and then reached for Daniel in a panic as she remembered what had happened before she fell asleep. "Daniel!"

"He's fine, Janet," reassured Dr. Brightman as she tried to prevent her friend from rousing the patient. Daniel stirred and moaned once but quickly fell back to sleep. "Let's let him rest," she said, pulling Janet gently toward the door. She guided her into an empty exam room next door and appraised the smaller woman quickly. "Dr. Jackson is fine; you, however, look like death warmed over."

"He has strep throat," Janet said as if she hadn't really heard Rebecca. "I gave him amoxicillin. He's allergic. I knew that; I should have remembered that. God, Rebecca, he could have died! And then I just flipped out—I haven't done anything like that since I was a resident. Oh my god, what have I done!"

"Hey!" said Dr. Brightman sharply as she placed her hands on Janet's shoulders. "Don't flip out on me now, okay? Everything's fine." Janet sighed and met her colleague's eye. "Janet, you are absolutely exhausted, and I suspect that as soon as I examine you, which I am about to do, I will find that you have a nasty little case of strep throat. You ought to know that you are the best damn doctor that any of us have ever seen; I would love to be half as good as you are. But even you can make mistakes sometimes. It's okay. Dr. Jackson is going to be just fine, and I'm sure he will be falling over himself to forgive you just as soon as he wakes up."

Janet snorted. "If only," she muttered.

Rebecca stared at her with bemused astonishment. "Honey, that man would do a whole lot more than just forgive you if you'd let him know you're interested."

Janet merely looked bewildered, and Rebecca rolled her eyes good-naturedly before holding up a tongue depressor and commanding her patient to open wide.

* * *

Dr. Brightman had diagnosed Janet's strep throat, pumped her full of amoxicillin—she wasn't allergic—and sent her off to bed. Janet had stumbled to her quarters, changed into sweats, and was about to crawl into bed when she heard a faint knock at her door. When she opened it, Daniel stood on the other side, still looking very ill.

"Hey," he said hoarsely. "I didn't wake you, did I?"

"No, I hadn't gone to bed yet." Janet was surprised to hear that her voice was as weak as his. "What are you doing here?"

"I was feeling a little better when I woke up, and Dr. Brightman said I didn't have to stay in the infirmary for strep throat. She also told me that you were sick, too. I wanted to apologize for giving you my disease."

"Huh? Why are you apologizing to me? Daniel, I'm the one who gave you a medicine that I should have remembered you were allergic to. Didn't Dr. Brightman tell you that? God, Daniel, I don't know what I'm going to do! How could I do that to you? You could have died, and it was all my fault. I'm so very sorry."

"Shhh," Daniel soothed as he cupped her face in his hands. Janet knew his fever was as high as hers when his hands didn't feel cool, yet she shivered anyway. "I'm fine, okay? Well, my throat hurts like hell, but it did that before. The point is, I'm not dying, and you certainly have nothing to blame yourself for." Janet opened her mouth to protest, but Daniel moved one hand to rest a finger across her lips. "Shhh."

Daniel was so close now, and she had been so afraid earlier during his reaction that she couldn't resist closing the gap between them and burying her face in his chest. Daniel's arms quickly closed around her, pulling her even closer.

They held one another for a few minutes until Daniel was wracked with a congested cough. Janet looked up at him with a concerned but bleary expression. "We're a pretty pathetic pair right about now," he wheezed.

"Did Rebecca give you more medicine before you left the infirmary?"

"Azithromycin," answered Daniel. "No reactions so far." He managed a weak smile as he looked at her. "Don't you dare feel guilty, Janet. And you really need to get some sleep."

"You too." Janet chewed her bottom lip for a moment as she watched him. He was flushed from the fever, and his eyes were glazed with sickness, but he still took her breath away, and she was loathe to leave his arms. "Do you want to stay?" she asked hesitantly, figuring she could blame anything on her fever at this point.

Daniel smiled slowly. "Yeah, I'd like that."

Janet flipped off her lamp and climbed into bed; Daniel pulled off his shoes and followed her, curling his own fevered body around hers. Relaxed for the first time in more than two days, Janet fell asleep almost instantly. Daniel placed a tender kiss on her warm forehead. "You can give me any medicine you want," he whispered before falling asleep in her arms.

* * *

The End 


End file.
